Well, my study must be getting closer, I got a bunch of stuff from Curtin in the mail welcoming me to the unit(s) and a
basic outline of rules and stuff like that. It had a space for my student number… but I didn’t get one. There was a note
saying that it was “to be advised”, so I emailed them and will wait and see. They are probably confused because
I already have a Curtin student number and they don’t know for sure if it’s the same person or whatever.
Well, it’s official, my registration with OLA has been accepted for study period 2, 2003. I will be studying the 2 units mentioned previously from June – August!
Just heard from Matt and my advanced standing has been approved – for 10 units at this stage.
I have also arranged my registration for 2 units for SP2, 2003; they are NET12 (Internet Studies) and REA11 (Applied Reasoning!)
I’m looking forward to REA11, I just hope it’s not too abstract or anything strange and annoying (the whole “argue by changing the subject” approach really gets me), but I am reserving judgement until I get into it 🙂 NET12 should be an interesting introduction to the core of the degree I think, so that will be interesting to see what things are going to be like 😉
I called Curtin to confirm that they had received my application and apparently they had, but it was sitting on a pile of paperwork untouched. After convincing them that it was indeed important (and had to get to the degree co-ordinator for advanced standing approval before the next study period began…), I think it should have been passed on to Matt for review/approval. He should receive it early next week hopefully.
Ahhh bureaucracy, how we love you!
Now I just have to wait and hear from Matt, hopefully to get the good news that I can have 12 units of approved advanced standing into the degree!
Well, me apparently. Purely by chance, I found out that the postage charge for a local letter here has gone up to 50c per letter. I clicked that I mailed in my application for enrollment using a 45c stamp that I still had, apparently from before they changed the rate!!!
I don’t know for sure if this means that my application hasn’t got there yet, so I emailed the guy who is supposed to be looking at my advanced standing (Matt), but he says that he hasn’t received it yet.
Now I have emailed LSN/CEA/OLA@Curtin to find out if it made it to Curtin at all, but who ever knows with that place – I’ve worked there, and I know how easy it is for mail (etc!) to go missing and never be seen again. *Fingers Crossed!*
Wow – I wasn’t expecting that. Unless it was a typo of some sort, this is what Matt had to say about my enrollment in the BArts(Net Studies);
I am the person who assesses these 🙂 – basically, I’d be looking at 8 units (out of 24) advanced standing – how does that sound?
and I was thinking – “bugger, that’s less than I was hoping for, so I trudged along to read the next message which said…
Just remembered – since you have units at Curtin already…12 units (which is the maximum I can give)…
and now, funnily enough, I have a very large smile on my face! This is excellent! With only 12 units remaining, I might still be able to finish by the end of 2004!
So far I have been dealing with Matthew Allen, the Coordinator for Internet Studies at Curtin Uni, who has been surprisingly helpful.
One thing that has really blown me away has been his willingness to suggest that I enrol via Open Learning Australia, which appears to be a much better method of study for me (assuming that I can maintain my own discipline), given that I currently work full time.
I have had to look again at what I wanted to do, because my previous enrolment attempt was unsuccessful. This is because all of the school-leavers get first option at the positions being offered, and they appear to have filled them all this year, so my application wasn’t even really considered. This left me with no enrolment, even though that’s what I had planned on doing. Enrolling through OLA allows me to start studying, without having to jump through the normal University hoops of enrolment. At OLA, I just sign up for the degree ($100), and then start studying units at my own pace.
This brings me to the next cool thing with OLA – the study periods. OLA works on 4 study periods, rather than the normal Uni-year of only 2 semesters. This means that if (theoretically,) I could keep up the pace of 2 units per study period (which I don’t think I can), then I would be able to complete the remainder of my 3 year degree (minus advanced standing) in about 2 years! Apart from this, it just means that you are much closer to being able to study at your own pace, since you have more control over your start-times and the time of year that you study — I like it.
I am in the final stages of completing my application for advanced standing, which will go along with my application for entry into the degree at Curtin, via OLA. Once that is done, I can hopefully get an idea of the number of units that I can “skip” when I start study, and know where to start with things. My official target is 9 units 🙂